Ron Tomalis is resigning from his nearly $140,000 job as Gov. Tom Corbett's special adviser on higher education. The move, announced Tuesday and effective Aug. 26, comes after weeks of pressure on Tomalis to step down after news reports revealed little evidence of work done in the role Corbett created for him in June 2013. Click here for the full article.Source: Allentown Morning Call, Aug. 13, 2014.

PA Principals Association is currently accepting nominations for High School Principal of the Year, Middle Level Principal of the Year and Secondary Assistant Principal of the Year awards. These are State awards which will be given at the annual banquet in October in Pittsburgh. Anyone interested (secondary members only) in applying for one of these awards should complete and forward the attached application to the PA Principals Association office by September 8, 2014.

Click here for a description or the award criteria, or click here for the award application. We look forward to honoring some secondary school leaders at our conference. Thanks for all you do on behalf of the many children across the Commonwealth.

Rep. Glen Grell's pension reform idea that would impact future state and school employees would produce savings that range between $27 billion and $30.5 billion savings for the two state pension funds over 30 years, according to an actuarial review of his plan released on Wednesday. But for taxpayers who foot the bill, the bulk of those savings for the Public School Employees' Retirement System and State Employees' Retirement System would be offset by having to pay off a $9 billion pension obligation bond that the Hampden Twp. Republican lawmaker's plan would require.Click here for the full article.

Pennsylvania is not alone in its public pension problems. Other states have struggled as well.

Nationwide, total debt facing state pension plans is $915 billion, according to the Public Sector Retirement Systems project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Only 15 states have consistently made at least 95 percent of the full actuarially required contributions for their pension plans from 2010 through 2012; the remaining 35 states (including Pennsylvania) fell short in at least one year,” according to the project website. And since last fall, the director of that project, Greg Mennis, has been trying to help Pennsylvania solve its pension problems.

In an interview last week, Mennis said his group has offered three basic pieces of advice to Mike Brubaker, R-36th, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and John P. Blake, D-22nd, the committee’s minority chair. “First, Pennsylvania has to commit to paying the current bill; second, we think they should establish a funding task force or study commission to come up with a comprehensive and transparent solution to this long-standing problem; and third, if that solution is some kind of hybrid plan design, that they consider a simple and proven hybrid model,” Mennis said.

The following FAQs are provided for guidance purposes only. It is recommended that any decision or action taken by a Local Education Agency (LEA) related to evaluation of its professional and temporary professional employees be made in consultation with the LEA's solicitor.

The Early Bird Registration Discount Deadline has been extended for the PA Principals Association Conference until Friday, August 1, 2014. The cost for a member is: $300. The cost for a non-member is: $400.

When it comes to divvying up the state dollars going into public education, it's good to be poor.

A good chunk of the $12 billion going into education in the recently enacted 2014-15 state budget that Gov. Tom Corbett signed last weekis driven out by a distribution formula that directs a disproportionate amount of state funding to poorer districts. "The premise of it has always been to provide more state funding to less wealthy school districts just because of their inability to raise local funds," said Tim Eller, press secretary for the state Department of Education.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) is re-sending this PENN*LINK to add the password needed to join the webinar on July 14-15, 2014.

PDE is providing an opportunity for local education agencies (LEA) to attend an online training that will address information about the Pennsylvania Alternate System of Assessment (PASA) 1 percent cap and a demonstration of the Data Recognition Corporation eDIRECT system followed by a question and answer period.

PDE will be offering four webinar sessions via WebEx on July 15-16, 2014. Presenters will be from PDE's Divisions of Performance Analysis and Reporting and the Division of Data Quality, along with the Data Recognition Corporation.

To register, please select one of the links provided below. Each session has a distinct registration link. Be sure to select the link associated with the session you plan to attend.

Secondary Career and Technical Education Subsidy -- The budget includes $62 million for the Career and Technical Education appropriation. This amount is the same amount appropriated in 2013-14. This appropriation allocates an estimated $49.6 million for the Secondary Career and Technical Education Subsidy (SCTES). Click here for more information and subsidies.